The End and Beginning of a Pleasant Dream
by bubblemilktea
Summary: Oneshot, A/U - Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy fall out of love and back in. A woman's story about the pain and joy of love. The end and beginning of a relationship told in four parts. Please Read and Review.


**The End and Beginning of a Pleasant Dream**

It was a cool, rainy day in autumn when Hermione Granger ran into Draco Malfoy as she exited the _Green spoon_, a cafe on 7th street in the outskirts of muggle London.

She had packed her belongings one by one into her handbag and bundled up in a dark-chocolate brown pea-coat, complete with an orange-cinnamon colored thick knit scarf. Equipped and ready, she moved to leave, plaid umbrella in hand. She stood, poised and ready to open it, when she saw someone cast a shadow upon the small doorstep of the rather small cafe. Curious, she looked up to find Draco Malfoy standing in front of her. He held a smooth black umbrella above his head and stood in a gray wool trench coat, blocking out the cloudy, overcast sky, enveloping her entire focal and peripheral vision. There was not a drop of water on him, despite it having been raining for most of the morning, if not since early last night. More striking than that however, were his piercing blue-grey eyes which stood out in such contrast to his black umbrella as they gazed steadily at her.

Her heart slowed to a stop, a beat, and it fluttered.

She had not seen him in eight years.

**I. The End of a Pleasant Dream**

"Let's break up."

Those words shook Hermione. Her cup stood still in her hands, midway to her lips, as she took in his words. She paused and said nothing as she slowly set her cup back down. The only sounds were those of the soft music which played in the background of the rather quiet cafe. Meanwhile, her brain slowly processed what it was that he was trying to say.

"Break up?" she finally repeated after what felt like several minutes had elapsed. In reality, it couldn't have been more than fifteen seconds. She continued to grasp her cup.

"Yes," Draco affirmed from his seat across from her. He sat with his arms resting on the small, elegant table of ivory-white. He looked composed, in control and casual, as though he was focused on enjoying the pleasant ambiance of the small cafe. The forgotten cup of Americano, set in front of him, spoke otherwise. She knew otherwise, the way his eyes would shift from object to object, never fixating on one place for too long, or the way he sat with his back rigidly pressed against the chair told her so. The silence continued, interrupted only by the periodic whirling of the espresso machine or the movement of chairs as people entered and left the café.

Another pause.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly. She had meant to speak loudly, but her throat betrayed her, and in her moment of hesitation, her words came out as a quiet croak. Her hand went to her throat as though to massage it out, her gaze upon her cup. It sat upon the table, still, the steam having left long ago, a black pool reflecting patches of light.

"I mean, that this is not working out Hermione," Draco replied. With a tired sigh, he put his head in his hands and took in a calm breath, as though to steady himself and affirm that this was the correct course of action. His right hand ran through his hair.

She felt, knew how difficult it was for him to say those words. Still, she couldn't understand. As her brain analyzed the past few days, weeks, months for clues, signs which lead to this, her heart could not find an adequate answer, even as her mind knew that this was a possible outcome of events given their past encounters.

There had been a few quarrels in the past months, all of them small. She had wanted to spend time alone with him, and instead found herself in the company of twenty of his colleagues. He had rearranged the furniture in her living room while she had been running errands simply because he found it more efficient, and she hated it. He had carelessly tossed aside a memo she had received from Ginny. He never told her when he would or would not be home. The list continued, and Hermione was tired. Her mind wanted out of this oppression of insecurity and misunderstanding.

Her heart, however, could not understand. She loved him.

"Why?" she asked, unable to comprehend his words. Her hands still remained clasped onto her small cup, as though it were her anchor in this strange reality, one that, if she let go, would result in her flying away and becoming lost in the whirlwind of her mind.

He said nothing. He took in one last steadying breath as he lifted his head to meet her eyes. She had long ago learned to read his silent gestures more accurately than his spoken words. She could see the pain inside them. His heart was breaking, and yet, at the same time, she could see the resolve of his mind. It was like a sharp, gray rock jutting out from the waters of the ocean, bracing itself time and time again against the crashing waters of the sea. He would not waver.

Numb. That was the best way to put how she felt, like she had stood out too long in the rain, soaked to the bone, such that, she could no longer feel raindrops splatter against her pale flesh. She sat silently, willing the words he spoke to sink in, to make her react and feel appropriately, but she couldn't. So she sat, grasping tightly onto her cup, a cool comfort, unable to act, unable to understand, unwilling to accept with those three simple spoken words. This was the end of their relationship.

He eventually left with some small excuse or another. She did not hear his words as he slipped on his jacket and buttoned only the middle two, the bare minimum to hold it together, scarf thrown haphazardly about his neck. He had said what was needed, so she sat alone in the emptying cafe, the music slowly fading in the background. Her hazelnut latte sat on the table top, long forgotten, cold, next to his Americano, left behind. She could relate.

In the end, it was too much to understand in one night, so she went home to sleep with the hope that, when she woke up in the morning, it would all just be a bad dream.

* * *

It was the shock of seeing him which hit her first, like a train wreck. Suddenly, she found herself flooded with past memories, emotions she had once associated with him.

It is said that smell is a trigger for memory. Whereas the other senses, such as vision, hearing, taste and touch, must first travel through the thalamus before being processed by the cortex, smell may completely bypass the system and be directly processed by the limbic system and the hippocampus, areas associated with emotion and memory, respectively.

Seeing Draco Malfoy was like encountering an odor long forgotten to Hermione Granger. It seemed he had an uncanny ability to bypass all higher brain functions and trigger her emotions and her memory.

That is to say, Draco Malfoy was a trigger for the mind, and ultimately the heart, as Hermione found herself suddenly knowingly, or unknowingly, recalling memories associated with him. One memory leads to another and another until finally her heart took over. No longer was she recalling memories as she was emotions, memories of the heart.

However, as memory of both the mind and heart works, it recalls the most recent of events before progressing backward, as we are most familiar with the present. So, Hermione found herself recalling the end days of their relationship.

It had been nothing really. It should have been nothing, but it was everything. Even now, so long after the fact, she could not brush it off as nothing.

She found herself alone for the fourth weekend in a row. She sat alone at home, unable to move, in part because of disappointment at him, but mostly, disappointment at herself. He had left with a promise to return around six. He was attending a lunch party hosted by one of the investors of his father's company. They would have lunch, a few drinks, and he would be back before she would notice that he was gone. This was all done with a peck on the cheek and a kiss on the nose.

It was now ten thirty.

He had broken his promise. More than that, she was disappointed at herself, for putting her life on hold for him. She could have just as easily called Ginny when it hit eight to grab dinner. Better yet, she should have made plans for lunch before she knew Draco would be busy. Instead, she sat at home waiting, aimlessly waiting, with her life on hold.

She couldn't understand how she could be so important to him when it felt like she came second to everything in his life. She knew she held a special place in his life, consuming a vast majority of his concern and thought, and yet, none of it manifested in actions. He never set aside time for her. Instead, he attended dinner parties without her. He was constantly conducting business, never informing her of his day. She knew none of his friends, even though they had been together for more than seven months. Bottom line, they knew each other no more than when they had first moved in together, even while each could not imagine a life without the other. Perhaps, they had been too hasty, had fallen in love too fast.

The ensuing argument which took place an hour after he returned home at half past twelve was, crudely put, epic. Even as she cried, even as she told him how she felt and what she wanted from him, the bottom line was that he didn't understand. He didn't understand. Whether this was he couldn't understand or wouldn't understand was beyond Hermione, but he couldn't understand.

It was this thought that gave her pause. The thought that he wouldn't understand was understandable as it showed a flaw within his character and was something Hermione could learn to forgive. However, the thought that he couldn't understand frightened her. This meant that Draco Malfoy was physically incapable of understanding her, as though it were programmed into him, an incompatibility.

That thought scared her, and in that moment, Hermione's first doubt of the certainty of their relationship had formed.

**II. The Hurt Which Results From the Inability to Understand**

It took one week for the words to sink in and for her to absorb their intent.

"Let's break up."

At first, she could not understand what those words meant. Her heart told her that they loved each other, that this was surely a mistake. In storybooks, love conquers all. That meant, in life, love is enough, should be enough. Thus, one call later at twelve fifteen at night, she found herself crying over the phone.

"But, I love you," she cried after they had gone from calm, level headed voices to screaming and shouting at each other.

Hermione was currently curled up in her bed, a pile of used tissues and a half used tissue box next to her as she hugged a pillow and held the phone closely to her ear. It didn't matter that she was one of the brightest witches of her generation, that she had a maturity rivaling that of wizards twice her age: Hermione Granger was a woman in love. To a woman in love, there is no such thing as dignity or pride. In front of love, a woman in love is helpless. Thus, she expects man to be the same. This, however, is not often the case as they have more sense than to fall subject to such subjective things, even as they suffer from the same fatal disease.

"Hermione," Draco replied, his voice sounding broken on the phone, whether due to the connection or something else, Hermione could not be sure. "I still care deeply about you, but we cannot go on like this."

Then that haunting word: Friends.

It came up in variation.

"I hope we can be friends someday."

"I still consider you a friend."

"I'm still your friend Hermione."

She wanted to tell the word "friend" and whoever made the cursed word in the first place to go burn in hell.

This episode repeated five times over the next two weeks in variation. Sometimes she cried, other times she was melancholy and sad. Other times she was bitter and angry towards him. Each time she wanted him to react, to say he was wrong, say that he was sorry, and each time he failed to deliver.

It was amazing how three simple words could cause so much damage.

Finally, five weeks from the day he first spoke those words, they met in the park. It was a bright, sunny day in June. Together, they sat on a bench overlooking a small muggle playground. Little children ranging from the age of three to ten ran around chasing one another with grass-stained knees or hair tied up in pigtails, their laughter filling the air.

She had come with every intent to change his mind and make him realize just how wrong he was. However, when she finally saw him, she realized there was nothing she could say. She could find no words to describe what the heart was saying. Already she had asked him to stay in the language of the plain, spoken word, in tears, in anger and pleas. So when he came to a halt in front of her, she said the first word that came to her mind.

"Hi."

He sat on the bench next to her, her handbag placing a barrier between them. She realized then, that he had come for her benefit and not his. He had said all he wanted. Perhaps he already had that day in the cafe. Anyhow, this was the end. He had come to terms with it. He had accepted it. Now, it was her turn to accept what was and move on.

However, Hermione didn't want to move on. She still couldn't understand it as they sat there on that bench, silent except for the laughter of children nearby. She couldn't understand and it was there, in that moment, she realized that all her anger, sadness, and frustration came from her inability to understand him, and perhaps, his inability to understand her.

They loved each other, so deeply, but while the heart knew, the mind did not. Actions and words did not compute. Perhaps that's where they went wrong. They were speaking different languages.

In the end, she could find no words to say to him, so she sent him off with a weak smile, arms tight by her side.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time."

That afternoon, Hermione went on a rampage.

Any of her friends would tell you it was a nightmare, something they had never seen the likes of, nor would ever see again. While Hermione was unaware of the circumstances which led to the current situation, her friends were of less bias and had seen the signs. They had seen the deep affection Hermione and Draco held for each other, but they had also seen the strains in the relationship. They saw how the two of them kept missing each other, even while they tried to reach out. They were like the survivors of a ship wreck, trying to grab onto each other over the crashing waves which continually pulled them apart. Thus, even while Hermione had been in a cycle of up and down for the past few months with Draco, nothing had prepared them for the aftermath of Hermione and Draco.

Ginny, after hearing the news from Harry, who heard from Draco when they had met by chance at the Ministry, arrived to find Hermione throwing away his things one by one as she cursed his name, his clothes, and, most importantly, his inability to love her correctly. It was due to this last category that she scorned the birth of Draco Malfoy, in essence, his very being.

She would shout these exclamations one moment and the next moment she would collapse, crying that she missed him. She cried for him, for her, for them, for "us". After an hour of crying, she would reach for the phone, about to call him, to tell him she missed him, then she hesitated for another hour and decided calling him was not worth what little pride she had left. Shake, stir, repeat. The vicious cycle continued.

One would believe Draco Malfoy caused this.

The truth is it wasn't about him.

See, when a woman falls in love with a man like Draco Malfoy, she gives him everything. She gives him all her time, all her heart, all her love. All this in hopes that Draco Malfoy, a cold man who does not show the inner workings of his heart, will warm up and willingly reveal what she knows to be true: his love. She puts his needs above hers because if she had to choose between him and herself, she would choose him because of that great and, on occasion, miserable thing called love.

So, she cried. She cried because love was not enough, but mostly she cried because she didn't understand why love was not enough. She cried because she couldn't understand what went wrong, at what step they had fallen apart.

And finally, Hermione Granger cried for lost love.

* * *

They had met, truly met for the first time at Flourish and Botts in Diagon Alley.

It had happened perhaps by fate. They found themselves working on the same project under separate supervisors. Like a cliché movie or a classic romance novel, they were about to reach for the same book when their hands unknowingly, or knowingly, brushed one another.

It didn't matter that they had been enemies in school. Those days were over.

Thus, Hermione set aside all thoughts she had about Slytherin, and he Gryffindor. He inquired about her interest in the tome they had both reached for and she replied in full. Their discussion continued as each purchased a copy and together they found themselves in a small cafe for lunch.

A soup, salad, and a couple of coffee cups later, Hermione found herself captivated by Draco Malfoy. He was no longer the spineless, power-hungry coward she had met in school. He had grown into a confident man who had built himself up well after the war and admitted with a faint blush to her that he enjoyed reading Jane Austin novels from time to time. At the end of their time together, he asked politely for her phone number, as the equivalent of muggle cellular devices had become standard in their department, due to their convenience. Hermione was thrilled; all thoughts of the child Draco and their previous animosity were forgotten. She gave it to him on the back of their receipt, which he handed to her with a pen. They exchanged goodbyes and parted separate ways.

A day later, he called to ask if she available for dinner that evening. She agreed.

He had asked her to meet him at a high end restaurant called _Piccolo_. She was nervous. She had only ever been there on Ministry occasions and never ever as dinner or a date. After spending a large portion of the afternoon preparing herself, she refused to ask Ginny for help since that would mean this was serious, she left her flat with the wave of her wand.

She cursed the fact that she hadn't thought to check the weather as she ran from shop to shop trying to avoid the evening drizzle under a random newspaper she had found at the bus station while in a state of panic at the thought that her afternoon of preparation was spent in vain. In her flurry she had forgotten about her wand.

When she finally saw the restaurant, she let out a sigh of relief. Draco stood outside under his black umbrella, as though waiting for her arrival. She knew she was a few minutes behind schedule. Elated that she had finally arrived at her destination, she ran up to him even as his eyes looked at her in mild surprise and amusement.

"I'm so sorry I'm late Draco," Hermione began as she immediately dropped the soggy, worthless newspaper to the ground and began to straighten out her hair and dress. "I had forgotten to check the weather, and it was so nice at home that I had assumed the evening would be lovely here as well, so I apparated to the closest location I knew to here because I thought it would be rude to apparate here right away and then—"

"You are a witch Hermione," Draco said as her cut her off amused and with a twinkle in his eyes. He immediately applied a drying charm upon her dress, straightened out her hair with a charm he had learned from his mother when he was much younger, and added a water repelling charm just in case her muggle sensibilities got the best of her once more when the left the restaurant. "Had I known coming here would cause you such distress, I would have called for a cab."

Hermione had heard every word that he said, but she paid little attention to it at that moment. Instead, she stared up at him in wonder at the sight of a smile on his face. It was the most brilliant smile she had ever seen, even during her days of helping her parents out at their dentistry practice. She knew in that moment that there was more to Draco Malfoy than what met the eye, and she knew that he was someone she could see herself spending a lifetime to figure out.

That is how their story began.

**III. The Calm Which Comes With Understanding That One Can Never Understand**

It took Hermione four months and twenty eight days for her to finally come to terms with things.

It hit her as she was working on notes for her project on the basis of genetic mutation within vampires, werewolves, and veelas, at a coffee shop just down the street from her place named the _Purple Onion_. It was both condemning and liberating. However, she accepted it as truth:

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy would never go out again.

Period.

It took Hermione seven months and twenty six days to understand that she would never understand.

It happened when she was lying in bed, half awake, half asleep contemplating whether it was worth the effort to get out of bed. It came to her as a random thought.

Hermione realized that she would never know why Draco Malfoy broke up with her. Since their break-up, she had tried time and time again to piece together their past and find out exactly where things went wrong. She could reflect back on their past encounters, point fingers, place blame, but always the answer came out different. Sometimes, it was her fault. Sometimes, it was his. Everything became a swirl of black and white until they became shades of gray. She became unable to discern where one color began and the other ended. Then the process would begin again.

Simply put, Hermione would never understand "why".

She became frustrated because she wanted to know why. Hermione Granger thought that thorough understanding of the situation would lead to her some sort of closure on the matter, if only for future purposes of avoiding such situations all together. She was of an analytical mind, one in which there was cause and effect, reactions lead to a product. Hermione wanted a simple world of black and white: she was right and he was wrong. In other words, Hermione was a perfectionist. As such, when one of her equations was wrong, she would pour over every letter and number until she could correct it. This applied to her life as well. She did not want to be labeled as a failure, and her relationship with Draco Malfoy was her biggest failure, but no matter how many different times, ways, perspectives, she looked at the situation, she never could understand where things changed.

It took Hermione one year and seven days to realize it was okay to never understand "why".

It was after she had started seeing a co-worker. He was in the same department as her, under a different supervisor. Due to the large project her supervisor had taken under his wing, he had convinced his fellow co-workers to loan him a few extra hands. Thus, Hermione found herself meeting Ryan.

He was a charming wizard. He had apparently attended a school in the States, despite having grown up in Britain as a child. His parents wanted him to see the world at a young age from different perspectives, thus the study abroad.

He was tall, blond, and he had an interest in Hermione. Hermione, in return was curious of his interest in her of all people and agreed when he asked her out for coffee.

Coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into a series of dates. However, the relationship ended before it even began, not because of anything right or wrong, but rather, it was not the right time. All it took was a business trip to France.

Hermione panicked when she didn't hear from him for three days. Doubt plagued her as she questioned his commitment to a relationship which hadn't even started. She realized the amount of hurt she would have to endure were this possible relationship ever to end, so she did what she could to save herself: she cut him off. She ended it.

After she lost a relationship before it even started, she knew understanding "why" did not matter. She knew that it was okay to not understand. Instead, she realized it was more important what she took out of the situation and her precious experience. She realized it didn't matter if she knew "why" because it would do nothing to change the situation. Hermione would not suddenly understand and come to terms with that had happened. If anything, she would probably become more upset that something initially petty could grow large enough to break two people apart, as it often ends up being.

Instead, she realized she should take it for face value: She had loved and loved deeply, and she had been loved deeply in return.

She finally realized for her, that was enough.

Perhaps there should be more to this story.

However, it is my belief that time is an adequate reply.

* * *

It is of note that Hermione realized she was not perfect when it came to relationships. She realized she was at fault, in part, for their failure.

This fact set in soon after Hermione and Draco broke up.

Hermione knew she was exceptionally smart. She knew she was a decently kind and compassionate person who cared about the people around her. However, she did not know that she was loved, and more importantly, wanted.

This may be due in part because of the rather busy nature of her parents. While they tried their best to provide all the love a young child needs, between the attentions they paid their clinic, their patients and each other, they knew very little about how their intellectually advanced child was feeling at the age of four. She wanted to talk to her parents about her day at pre-school, but instead they would be looking at appointments and discussing patients for the next day.

As a result, Hermione became hungry for love.

At her pre-school, her teachers praised her for her work and good manners and thanked her when she brought them flowers she had found outside. It made her happy that she could make someone happy. In addition, when her school friends would share their toys with Hermione, she was much moved that someone would share something so precious with her.

Thus, a small act of kindness on her behalf made Hermione happy. Soon, she came to associate happiness with love. To receive love was to receive happiness for Hermione. This gave her life meaning. She wanted to find her happiness through love.

It was with this mindset that she had met Draco.

It was doomed from the start.

Hermione found herself constantly waiting. She was the child of Dentists, who taught her from the start that it was her duty to make herself great. No one would help her along the way. Her inability to fit in a school was a constant concern for her parents. As a child who wanted nothing but unconditional love from her parents, she instead got rewarded for good behavior and chastised for bad. Even later, when she attended Hogwarts, Harry and Ron, her closest friends, would often abandon her when she was no longer needed or when they deemed she was too busy studying to be of any fun.

Ultimately it was self-loathing which drove herself from Draco Malfoy.

He would live his life as he had before he had met her. He would go to work. He would go to bed. Of course he always found time for her and was a changed man for her, but for Hermione, she could only watch his actions in stark contrast to her own. Hermione had a decent position in her department within the ministry. She had a handful of friends she would meet for coffee or dinner every few weeks. She had her hobbies of reading and occasionally research at her home to keep her busy, but a part of Hermione felt restless when she saw the life Draco lived. Hermione could tell that Draco Malfoy loved his life. She wanted to feel that sort of passion as well.

Thus, while Draco Malfoy was making his way through life, Hermione found herself resisting the current and standing still in self pity at her situation. She was a woman who wanted something more out of life. She wanted to stand back, look at her life and say how happy she was with it and herself. Instead, she came to hate herself for being so dependent on the love and happiness from another and being too weak to take the reins of her life and change it.

It was after the fact that Hermione learned that her happiness could not depend on the actions of others. A life such as that was doomed to sadness. Draco, for example, would not make her happy.

He could only be an innocent bystander as she began to ruin herself with self loathing.

**IV. The Beginning of a Pleasant Dream**

That is how Hermione found herself face to face with Draco Malfoy for the first time in five years. She had forgotten him, and she realized, in that moment, what had once been such a large part of her life and more importantly, her heart, now occupied the tiniest place: a mere memory.

Of course she recalled the memories, but now she could recall them without the pain, the heart ache. Maybe if she focused intensely enough, she could feel some remnants of pain. However, she could look at them subjectively as her past, her history, things that happened to her. They were not a part of her world now.

About two years after they broke up, Hermione finally felt stable enough to take baby steps to change her life. She had gone to Professor Severus Snape and begged him to take her as an apprentice so that she could develop her own potions and research properly, not the stuff she had been doing as a hobby since her graduation from Hogwarts. It took her three months for him to summon her for a series of exams in which he would see if she was worthy of studying the fine art of potions making. It took her another six months to finish the trials to the Potion Master's satisfaction. Afterwards, she moved to Hogwarts where he was still a teacher and worked closely with him for the next three years perfecting her technique and developing her thesis project: a treatment for the cruciatus curse.

During that time, she began to talk once more to her friends. She would see Ginny and the children every other weekend when she went over to have tea. Occasionally on her visits other members of the Weasley clan would be present, and she would listen to what was happening in their lives while also sharing hers. She would visit with her old professors at Hogwarts and visit Hagrid in his hut on the warmer evenings.

In addition, she began to work on her self esteem. Working with Severus Snape, if one was not confident in their capabilities and self then one could not succeed. Hermione Granger struggled the most with this during her time under his apprenticeship.

"If you cannot believe in yourself, how can you believe in your research?" Severus Snape would ask her time and time again, and she would be ashamed that she was still so spiteful towards herself.

It took many nights of tears and crying, sometimes into the Potion Master's robes for her to finally understand that it was alright to be scared and to fall down from time to time in life. That was what life was all about and instead Hermione Granger learned to embrace the struggle and the challenge and find joy in her triumph as failure was not unnatural, but rather expected.

Thus, with time, Hermione had finally gotten over him, he who had stood in her sky like the sun and the moon.

They stood there, each frozen in place. Whether this was due to their inability to move or unwillingness to move or some combination of both is unsure. The door opened and closed and people shuffled awkwardly around them, but those things remained outside of their perception. What is sure, however, is that after some time Draco spoke.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Draco asked. Hermione, still familiar with his voice after all these years, could see the signs of his hesitation. He held onto his umbrella a bit more tightly. His voice became softer than usual and his normally steady gaze flickered from side to side as though he were in the presence of danger.

Hermione looked at him in wonder, the same feeling of excitement filling her as it had when she had first encountered him in the book store. Thus, even while she had already been sitting in the café for more than a few hours, she pulled her umbrella back towards her and began to move her body towards the door.

"Okay."

They set their things down at a table by the window. The glass was fogged up by the heat of the room in contrast to the chill outside and began to perspire in the corners. Droplets of rain continued to cascade down the window-planes in a steady stream, their dull beat added to the atmosphere of the small, five table café.

They stood together to order, neither saying a word to the other. Instead, they stood together as though to familiarize themselves with something long lost but now found. Hermione noticed the little changes in Draco. While he still had a charismatic presence about him, it seemed muted from when she had first met him. His shoulders were not held as high and his hands were hidden in the pockets of his pants. He seemed casual enough, but his body looked as though it were curling in ever so slightly to create a cage about his heart. She wondered if she had changed too.

"I'll have a coffee black," Draco said to the barista at the counter. When Hermione did not immediately offer her selection, he turned slightly towards her. "Hermione?"

She looked from him to the barista to the menu, hand clutching her wallet to her chest. "I'll have a macaroon."

The barista smiled, as though she understood and went to fulfill their orders. Hermione hardly noticed that Draco had paid for his coffee and had ordered a soothing lavender mint tea for Hermione to drink along with her macaroon.

Hermione had taken her macaroon and Draco had told her to go sit down.

There was a pause as Draco sat down. Hermione had already taken a bite out of her macaroon. At this point, Hermione wasn't sure what she was feeling. She felt both overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time. Her mind was running at a hundred miles a second, but if she was asked what she was thinking about, she would reply that she had no idea.

Draco set down his coffee, sat back in his chair slightly as though to relax, and began to speak. "While I know you are no longer working for the Ministry, I heard that your previous advisor is working on a project which analyzes the genetics in humanoid magical creatures, but no one in the department seems to be capable of explaining it to me," Draco began. "Perhaps you can?" he asked with a small smile.

That began their conversation. What started with work, which was familiar to Hermione, soon lead her to sharing her life for the past five years. She talked to him about previous projects and articles that she had published while in her department and moved to share stories about her dating mishaps and research endeavors.

Draco in turn, shared things of a similar suit. Currently, he was working on a project to regulate laws regarding Veelas to suit both the Ministry and the Veela clans. He was the Ministry's proxy, as he is known to have Veela blood in his from some long removed ancestor, but Veelas took care of their kind and would accept his opinion in their discussions.

"Hermione—"

She turned her gaze from the window to look at him.

"Let's start over."

Eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar, her initial reaction was to tell him no, that, no she would not put herself though that hell again. She still felt the fear of rejection, that fear of fucking it all up. She wasn't sure if it was the right time in her life to start something. She wasn't sure if she was even capable of loving someone properly. She was still struggling at times to love herself after all her mistakes, not just with Malfoy, but with everything.

"You don't have to say anything now," Draco added hastily, his hand reaching out on the table, as though to grab onto her hand which rested but a mere inches from his. He had the decency to blush as he said, "I speak to Severus occasionally and he would inform me of your progress from time to time. He warned me against saying anything to you so soon, but…"

Hermione looked at him mildly surprised. Severus had never mentioned Draco Malfoy in front of her except for when she was in the middle of a break down and he was the very subject matter of her self-doubt.

It made her a little irritated, but that was another matter entirely, so she pushed it aside.

She realized now, that perhaps, she would never overcome her fear which comes with not understanding what happened in the past. Perhaps one can never be completely clean of past transgressions. Perhaps, it's okay to be what felt to Hermione like an incomplete human being: someone who had lost the ability to love innocently with all her heart.

She knew her insecurities were her own demons, but perhaps this time, she would not have to share the burden alone. Perhaps, this time, their love could support one another.

She knew it wouldn't be easy. There would be days when she would doubt her decision. There would be days where the fear of hurting someone she loved dearly would seem to outweigh the benefits of having such a person so close. She knew, ultimately, her scars would hurt Draco, but perhaps, love embraces everything.

She spoke nothing as she slowly got up and gathered her belongings. Draco hastily followed her example and chased after her out the door.

Draco Malfoy loved her, and perhaps, a part of Draco had never stopped loving her.

It was with this thought in mind that Hermione took out from her bag a piece of paper, which happened to be a part of a crossword puzzle she had been solving to pass the time, and wrote on it her name, number, and the date and time of their next meeting. She wrote this against the doorframe of the café, and as a result the ink bled in places where raindrops adhered to the thin paper.

This is what she handed to Draco Malfoy.

He looked at her perplexed as he held onto the now rather damp piece of newspaper.

"If we're going to start over, we might as well start at the very beginning," Hermione replied as she opened her umbrella and stepped out into the quiet rain. A car drove by, its headlights momentarily illuminating them. "I expect to hear from you soon."

She didn't allow him a word as she stepped out into the street with a smile.


End file.
